Category: Movies

I love me a comic-book. I really do. For a long time, Hollywood has completely messed up some comics for me. They destroyed X-Men for me with their rendition when they decided to spew it onto the big screen. I mean there are some people who loved it, but I couldn’t get my head around why they would blatantly murder Charles Xavier and Cyclops (I didn’t mind Cyclops’ death because he’s a douche) when they are central figures in the whole bloody story. But that is for another day. Today, it’s about the Amazonian Wonder Woman.

So, our friends from Hollywood decided to throw this movie at us. I must say I enjoyed the movie. It follows another one of Zeus’ offspring Diana aka Wonder Woman (Zeus seems to have children EVERYWHERE) who grew up on an enchanted island that is inhabited entirely by a race of warrior women. Unfortunately, Captain James T. Kirk finds his way to the island while running away from a horde of Nazi’s who are after his head.

From left: Some guy, Captain James T. Kirk, Wonder Woman, some other guy, and a sniper who has lost his marbles.

Captain Kirk seems to have lost his ship, the Enterprise (again) and has found himself on an Earth that he has never seen. He eventually convinces Diana to help him stop the Nazi’s from completing their evil plan to kill a whole bunch of people, after being lassoed by the lasso of truth.

So after having grown up on an island of women, Diana finally leaves her home, possibly to never return and embarks on a quest to kill the God of War. Apparently, she was brainwashed… I mean raised to believe that the God of War is the reason why puny humans are always trying to kill each other. Not because we are all germs, but because of the God of War.

Ares, God of War

Anyway, Diana then spends the next hour and something trying to fit into the normal world, walking around the streets of London holding a sword and a shield, melting at the sight of a baby and having a mini orgasm eating ice cream.

The bullet repelling bangle-thingys… also ZeGerman’s can’t shoot

The movie has a pretty predictable ending to it. Captain James T. Kirk sacrifices the Enterprise… I mean his life to save a bunch of people. He dies… Before he does, he tells Diana that he loves her. Diana kills her uncle Ares and does not become the new God of War (which is a shame because I think she would have been a kick-ass God of War). The Germans also lose the war which is the only way that history can be written.

Ready to deflect bullets

Happy ending, but also sad because Captain James T. Kirk goes down with the ship and Diana is left all by herself to survive in this world surround by puny humans (Until she meets the rest of the Justice League).

Overall Verdict

The movie was generally enjoyable, with a few funny moments that kept the movie entertaining. The action seems at times to have been put together with a degree of difficulty. It seemed as though the guys who did the storyboard for the action scenes didn’t have their daily drug fix beforehand. The rest of the story is told reasonably well. The background issues are handled decently

So it’s that time again to review another B Movie. This movie is not so much of a B movie. In fact, this was a B+ movie. Firstly it has a pretty well know actor. He isn’t the main actor in the movie, but he has starred in movies such as The Mummy, The Mummy Returnsand Blood Diamond to name a few. He also featured in 24 (TV Series) as a lunatic terrorist hell bent on killing Jack Bauer. Jack Bauer kills him.

The most famous actor in the movie

Anyway, the movie’s protagonist is a legendary shark hunter and killer who is afraid of water. Well not afraid, but he tries to choose not to swim very often. He is the only person who respects the dangers of playing with a large fish with dangerous teeth. Regardless, he is still employed by his brother and the antagonist at the same time and sent on a ludacris mission to kill a shark that ate a diamond. Just let that sink in for a few seconds while I compose myself.

The main dude

I must admit I fell asleep before the end of the movie. That may have been due to the fact that I had to drink before and while watching the movie. I am not sure how the movie ends, but I am sure it has a happy ending that involved the protagonist and his girlfriend.

Main dude’s chick

However, for a B movie, I was impressed by the fact they chose an exotic location. They didn’t find a random beach resort and claim to be in Hawaii or something like that. They came and filmed in South Africa. I was pleasantly surprised by that. In fact, they even went on to employ some South African actors. They weren’t lazy and employed an American or British actor and asked him to deliver a really bad South African accent (See Blood Diamond).

All in all, I give this B movie a solid 4 shark killers out of 5. They definitely tried and spent like real money to make the movie, they got one semi famous actor, they had some genuinely good locations that they filmed from, the writers tried and managed to make it both watchable and funny, and the movie was predictable. Just the way that B movies ever only manage to be.

Cast: A very old Jeane-Claude Van Damme, other people not worth mentioning but there to make up numbers

Runtime: 1hr 44 predictable minutes

So I got this movie from one of my work colleagues like a bazillion months ago and it sat on my computer unwatched. I should have taken that as a hint as to not watching it. Anyway, there is a very old looking Van Damme running around Thailand trying to find his kidney. In perfect scare tactics manner, Van Damme goes to Thailand, and on his first night there he wakes up in a bathtub of ice and water.

Of course he was gonna do the splits…

So he goes about a stupid journey, hunting down the people who took his kidney. His brother pops up and it turns out the reason why Van Damme is going to hard is that he was supposed to give his kidney to his daughter who’s mother is his brother’s dead wife. Yes, Van Damme slept with his brother’s wife (when they had separated, but apparently he had a thing for her since his brother got married. Nice right?).

The girl who stole all the hearts… and a kidney

Anyway, after some half decent fight scene, C grade quality graphics the movie painstakingly comes to an end. Van Damme gives donates his other kidney (without any prior paperwork saying that he consented) in order to save his daughter who is being raised by his brother. Oh and for the kicker: the woman who seduced and drugged Van Damme prior to the illegal surgery done on him, is forgiven by Van Damme and then hooks up with his brother after Van Damme’s death. She is also a spitting image of Van Damme’s brother’s wife. Very confusing

Overall I give this move 1 half decent car chase scene out of 5. Delete after downloading, do not download or waste the space on your computer, hard drive, memory stick, phone, or SD card.

Runtime: An easy hour and 56 minutes (Watch out for the old school five minutes of opening credits)

Release Year: 1994

I am not sure where to start with this movie so I will start in the middle. If you are looking for a mid-90s movie with good old Sandy B, Neo before he met Trinity and a crazy bomber who shouldn’t have been caught at the end of the movie, look no further than Speed. This movie (as far as I am concerned, and in my professional opinion as an armchair movie critic who doesn’t get paid for doing this) starts off with a bang. There is very little time spent only building up the character’s… character as this is done as the movie progresses.

It follows two LAPD cops, Neo and some other guy, (both who seem to work in bomb diffusion and disposal) on the hunt of a lethal bomb maker. They have to thwart his attempts at extorting the city of LA through his acts of terrorism twice. First Hopper the Bomber plants an impossible set of bombs on an elevator. However, Neo and his partner save everyone and assume that Hopper the Bomber dies. Guess what? WRONG!! In true mid-90s fashion, Hopper the Bomber is still alive.

Dennis the Bomber with his hand on the trigger

So begins the predictable fixation that Hopper the Bomber has with Neo. Here begins the typical game of cat and mouse that Neo plays with Hopper the Bomber. As impossible as it is, Neo prevails and ensures that Hopper the Bomber loses his head… literally.

The movie also features Sandy B, who puts up a pretty entertaining performance throughout the movie. Starting off as a normal person getting onto a bus, and ending the movie as a normal person with badass tendencies, anger issues, a love at first sight complex, experience in terrorist negotiations, experience driving at high speeds, experience driving a bus and a host of facial expressions that keep the movie ticking over.

The movie has some epic scenes. None more than when they make a bus jump 50 feet. It so happens that the final trap set by Hopper the Bomber, is a speed triggered bomb. A bomb is attached to a bus and arms itself when the bus goes over a certain speed (50 miles per hour) and explodes if the bus goes below 50 miles an hour. In an attempt to stop the bus from exploding, they drive onto a disused section of highway with the hope of avoiding traffic. However, to their horror, the highway has an overpass that has a 50-foot section that is missing. Instead of diverting the bus to a safer section of the highway, they decide to jump it over.

The Flying Bus

All in all, I give this movie 8.5 headless bad guys out of 10. It is very entertaining and has action that is far fetched but gets away with it simply because Neo and Sandy B are in it. The plot is simple enough to follow, so no matter how drunk you are prior and during the watching of the movie, you will get the gist. The twist and turns in the movie are also nicely signposted, so as to ensure that you don’t end the movie with questions.

The only question you should have is how big is the fuel tank on a bus?

Starring: Neo (From the Matrix), Morpheus (Also from the Matrix), Common (Yes the rapper dude), and a few other familiar faces from the first Movie.

If you haven’t watched the first John Wick yet I suggest you go and watch it, then watch this one as soon as you are done.

Once again the Boogeyman is on the loose, murdering crimelords and their henchmen like its an everyday thing. For John Wick, it seems like this is the reason why he came into this world. To ensure that the population of henchmen does not grow too large. In fact, he is ensuring that there is a low rate of unemployment in the henchmen industry by killing as many of them as possible.

Always nice to get help from the person who showed you the real world…. wait. Wrong movie…

In this “episode”, John Wick is called out of retirement AGAIN (however I have to commend the director/producer/writer or whoever came up with the idea) to kill some evil guys sister. As the story progresses, it turns out that his target is someone who he actually knew quite well. So he kills her, then his employer double crosses him and dies (No surprise here).

The movie is utterly enjoyable. John Wick continues with his same vein of killing a few hundred people in his way by way of (multiple) headshots, the use of knives, fists and most notably a pencil.

Depressed John Wick

John is still depressed about the death of his wife and is still not over her death. This makes watching his murderous reign all the more enjoyable. He has a new dog that has no name and at least in this movie the dog does not get unnecessarily killed.

The fight scenes in the movie see as realistic as the movie is, which isn’t a lot. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t entertaining. They were highly entertaining and probably the best I have seen this year.

The people (writers/director/producers) did a good job of making this movie start and end without feeling like they were trying to beat a dying donkey with a sledgehammer in the hope that it would come back to life. They brought in interesting and exciting ideas like other Continental Hotels, gunsmiths, tailors and an entire world surrounding the underworld that John Wick operates in.

All in all, I gave this movie a solid 8.2 headshots out of 10. The movie wasn’t too long, the story was easy to follow and kept my wife and myself enthralled from the beginning to end.

IMDB Movie Snippet: “Twenty-five years after members of a religious cult committed mass suicide, the lone survivor returns to the scene of the tragedy with a documentary crew in tow”

Starring: Jessica Alba and some other people.

Run time: 1hr 33min

So the synopsis that IMDB gives leaves you wondering what else the movie could be about. I am happy to say that on more than one occasion I let out a frightened yelp, I had sweaty palms and felt as though my blood ran cold while watching the movie. I also watched the movie in bed with headphones on, so that may have enhanced how frightening the movie ACTUALLY was. It had many of the prerequisites for a horror movie. Not for a good horror movie, but just for a horror movie. It had the eerie location, it had the mystery as to what was terrorizing people and it even had a good back story as to where the terrorists came from.

The other OTHER people in the movie

In fact, the background of the story is supposed based on a true story about a cultist group of people who committed mass suicide on some ranch in America-Land (The Jonestown Massacre). This gave it a bit of realism to the story. Not like a Blair Witch Project kind of realism, but it’s own unique storyline that was pretty much believable.

Anyway everyone dies at the end of the movie which makes me feel a little better about the movie. There were some pretty average performances by the rest of the supporting cast. Jessica Alba’s performance borders on frighteningly annoying. Throughout the movie she continually makes bad decision, refusing all signs to leave her investigations alone and shows a complete lack of leadership. In fact it is her fault she got all her friends and some of her family killed. She is actually a really bad friend throughout the movie.

It is one of the first horror movies that I have watched in a VERY long time where they stick together for most of the movie without splitting up. For once they are all somewhat afraid/skeptical about splitting up. Eventually though, the poor planning brings an ultimate and somewhat unsatisfactory demise to all of the people who feature in the movie.

All in all the movie had the chance to be a pretty good movie. The length was adequate for the quality of the horror they tried to expressed and this makes it an easy to watch horror movie. Horror movies should not be “easy to watch”. In fact, this movie has the potential to be a very entertaining comedy as the poor decisions made by Jessica and her motley crew leave a great deal to be desired.

All in all if you want to watch a bunch of people going where they SHOULD NOT be going, making bad decision, ultimately meeting their demise in barely scarey kind of way, and also have an hour and thirty minutes of time to waste, then find another movie to watch. This one is not worth it. It’s not even worth watching it a second time, because I think the disappointment would be even worse.

If I had seen the poster before I watched the movie, I wouldn’t have bothered. Also, the movie was produced by WWE….

So after 94 minutes of straining to follow this movie, I managed to conclude that I could have better spent the 94 minutes doing something else…. like sleeping.

I have to admit that the movie started off with a bit of a bang. It seems a little bit interesting. It follows an American living in London with his daughter. He works as a security guard during the day and moonlights as a single father at night. However, his world is turned upside down when three individuals break into his house and try and rob him of drugs (shock horror cocaine), only for them to realize that they have got the wrong address. After they threaten to kills his daughter (after they beat him into unconsciousness with baseball bats and he wakes up), he decides to go bad ass and kill all three of the robbers.

If the movie was to end at this point, it would have been a brilliant start and end to a movie. There would have been enough mystery around who this main actor dude was, why his wife was dead, and it also showed that he was a bad ass and loved his daughter so much that he was willing to murder some dudes in self-defense.

Unfortunately, the guys who wrote this movie decided to carry on with the movie. They then made up some feeble story about him being some agent for some unnamed secret agency in ‘Murica, how his wife was killed because of the job, and how much he loved his daughter (even though he kills her grandfather at the end of the movie).

What then ensues in between the rather bland story telling, is a lot of chase scenes (It seems like they ran across most of London), semi-exciting fight scenes that had a lot of slow motion wrestling moves and more drop kicks than one would see in The Royal Rumble 2017.

I would strongly suggest that if you have nothing to watch, don’t watch this movie. Take your chances with watching paint dry. That would be more engaging than watching these guys running around and getting paid to act as though they are distressed.

The movie was so distressing that I am struggling to find many more words to describe the feeling that I went through, lying in bed and concentrating on the occurance of the actors in this movie. It didn’t even have a happy ending when it could have had one. They actually killed the only possibility of giving it a happy ending. They also ensured that there would be no room for a sequel (Thank God!) but tying up all the loose ends.. all one of them.